Tuesday 7^th What a morning! All the action started when I was just finishing brushing my teeth and I looked out of the window to see a little black dog and a little brown dog scampering over the chapel field and across the road straight in front of a load of vehicles. It had Peter C (who is painting our house) panicking coz he though the black one was our Mollie.

Mum and Dad weren’t in and I couldn’t just stand there and watch these 2 dogs running about down the middle of the road so I ran downstairs, got Abby and we went to try and catch them. They were both in the neighbours back garden so I knocked on the door but they weren’t in.

The dogs weren’t very tame (either that or they were just excited to be free) but the brown one came over and sniffed Abby then me. Meanwhile, the black one was running round the back yards of the white cottages and Mr + Mrs M from the end cottage came out. They helped a bit by standing in the way of the path to the road but they’re elderly so couldn’t exactly leg it round after them like me and my sis were!

I got Mollie’s collar and lead and managed to catch the brown one but the black one just ran miles up the main road. Abby followed and still couldn’t see it.

Mrs M said that someone in the red brick terrace had 2 little dogs and if he wasn’t in we could try the relative next door. We knocked but no-one answered so we went to the 3^rd house along and an old lady answered. She said they could be his dogs and went and checked but they weren’t. She gave the one we had a biscuit and we took it home again.

I went in and Abby stayed outside with him coz we couldn’t take him in coz of Mollie. I phoned loads of RSPCA and animal welfare numbers but there was either no answer or they couldn’t help us.

Mum came home for her lunch and actually took it quite well. She suggested that we put the dog in the shed whilst we sorted things out so we did. Abby ran off again after the black one and I had to go too with keys coz Mum had gone back to work. I was terrified of seeing it get run over or something so I was a bit reluctant to go. To make matters worse it was pouring with rain. Two girls on bikes (who had been asked if they’d seen it by us before) found us and said they had seen it running round by the shop. We ran up there and saw it bolt back behind a terrace of houses.

I went in the shop to see if Mary could do or see anything and she came and said we should just phone the Cats & Dogs Home coz she thought it might belong to the bloke who shot her cat. That made me feel a bit less sympathetic towards the dogs at first but then I realised that it’s not the dogs’ fault which owner they have and Mary only thought that.

The chase continued. It went in another garden so I knocked to ask if it was ok to go in and an old lady answered and said it was fine and that we were good girls which I appreciated coz I was pretty fed up and wet.

We gave up in the end and said that we’d just phone someone like the RSPCA again to collect it. As we were walking round the front, we saw it jumping up and down at a front door. It must’ve been where it lived so we told ourselves that it’d probably stay there.

When I got home again, I tried phoning places but still no-one would come. Then we had a couple of messages on the answer service from Dad. He was shouting at us to get off the bloody phone coz he thought we were on to our friends.

That was it. I just burst into tears. It had all been too much and I was still worried about the black one. I felt that it was all down to me to sort everything coz Abby wouldn’t phone anywhere and now Dad was yelling at me. I just went out to the shed and sat with the dog. He seemed pleased to see me, for the company I think. He was a lovely little thing.

Abby phoned Dad to explain things and he understood and said he’d come home from Widnes. Abby and I got the extendable lead out and played fetch with the dog in the garden until Peter C came and said a man was here looking for his dog. We went round the front and he thanked us, called his dog a naughty bugger, picked him up under his arm and went.

I have to say, I was very glad to get rid of him and he also told us that the other one was at home which I was relieved about.

Camelot tomorrow. I wonder if anything will happen between me and Ralph!